Sewerage district completes pump station’s upgrade

Thursday

Oct 18, 2012 at 3:15 AMOct 18, 2012 at 9:53 AM

By Shawn P. SullivanSanford News Editor

SANFORD — The Sanford Sewerage District’s upgrade of the wastewater pumping station at the corner of Morris Street and Daylight Avenue is complete.The project, which cost approximately $1 million, involved installing new Variable Frequency Drives that better control the flow of wastewater into and out of the three pumps at the station.“That means we save a lot of money on electricity,” Superintendent Michael Hanson said.The station pumps water through lines from the west side of town, up Carver Street and across Main Street to the east side, where it is then sent to the district’s wastewater treatment plant off Gavel Road in South Sanford. According to Hanson, peak flow times are in the morning, when residents wake up and shower and get ready for the day, during lunch hours, when they’re home from work, and in the evening, when they prepare dinner and get ready for bed.Also as part of the upgrade, the station has a new SCADA — Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition — system that records data from all three pumps. Heating and ventilation have also been improved at the station, Hanson added.The district built the pump station in 1950 to keep wastewater from flowing into the Great Works Lake located west of the area.Hanson said the district financed the project with a $1 million loan from the state’s Clean Water Revolving Loan Fund. The district borrowed the sum at 1.5 percent interest, to be paid back during 20 years. Since the district has an asset management plan and a capital equipment fund, it was able to get a 5 percent reduction in what it must pay back.“Even though we borrowed $1 million, we only have to pay $950,000 back,” Hanson said.Hanson added that as a result of certain savings — when two employees left, they were not replaced, for example — the district did not have to raise rates to fund the upgrade.T-Buck Construction, of Auburn, completed the project.